Page 79 of Dishonored

Pity stared back.

Empathy.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she mumbled, turning her gaze to the passenger window. “You know I hate it when you pity me like that, Nico.”

“I wasn’t pitying you.”

“It sure looked like it.”

“I was thinking … I don’t think you would be the Aria De Rose you are now without the things that have been done to you. Would you give her up if you could choose something—someone other than Raffe?”

She didn’t even have to think about it.

“No.”

She was who she was.

And she would win.

“You know,” Aria said, peering back at Nico, “you never did tell me why Raffe thinks you’re gay.”

And why he trusted him enough that Raffe assumed Nico would never even consider touching Aria in a less than innocent way.

Nico shrugged. “He saw me kissing a man once in a club.”

Her brow shot up. “What?”

Her friend laughed. “My tastes vary. I never said I was gay—never said I was straight, either. It all depends on my mood.”

Huh.

“And you … never thought to correct his assumption?”

“Why would I?” Nico asked. “It’s none of his fucking business, and it worked well for you in the end, didn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

The two quieted for a while longer.

It was him who broke the silence.

“He’s got you a room at a hotel in New Jersey—under a different name, of course.”

Aria nodded. “And is my shadow still following me?”

Caesar, she meant.

He hadn’t stopped tailing her in weeks.

She was banking on him still being close behind.

“As far as I know,” Nico said, “or he’s got someone doing it for him. They do have a funeral to handle tomorrow, you know. I believe he will be there given it was his sister-in-law killed by Raffe’s bomb.”

Aria nodded to herself. “Good, good.”

She suspected—and hoped, despite always saying hope was for the weak—that Caesar Accardo would not let her get out of his sights for too long. He didn’t give a shit what his father was doing, or what her husband was planning. He only cared about figuring out Aria’s plans, and working against them.

That meant, he would need to be wherever the hell she was. He would not let her leave the city without soon following behind.